Serenity's Wing
by Xof Kalb
Summary: Duo Maxwell encounters a new and dangerous enemy, but just when he thinks it can't get any worse he finds himself lost and alone in a new world where nothing is as it seems. Can the former Gundam Pilot find a way to return home with his sanity intact?
1. Journey

**Author's Note:** Hello there, and welcome to Serenity's Wing. This is a rewrite of my former Firefly/Gundam Wing crossover called Of Amethyst and Gray. Hopefully, this is a better version. I attempted to create a better back-story, which means this starts out a tad bit slower than my first take. There's a better, hopefully stronger, plot this time around—although the first one never really got to that level anyway—and I've started re-watching the Firefly series, so the characters should be as close to in-character as I can possibly make them. If they're still wrong, then please let me know and hopefully I can fix it. I'm a stickler for IC-ness. And to top this new version off, Duo will meet up with Mal and co. _much_ faster this time around.

Just in case anyone cares about this sort of thing, I'm ignoring the Oort Cloud theory. If you don't know what it is, then it doesn't matter anyway. :D

Please note that this is un-beta'd and therefore there are probably typos that I've missed on the read-through. Thanks!

**Also**, to make things a little clearer, this takes place after the last episode of Firefly and between the GW series and Endless Waltz. The Mariemaia thing will probably still happen, though I'm still not entirely sure _when_ it will happen.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. I don't own Firefly, either. This is purely for fun. No profit made. No copyright infringement intended. Thank you.

**Chapter One**

Duo Maxwell—much to the vexation of certain individuals acquainted with him—was the type of person that channeled his frustrations through 'positive' outlets. People, for example, were great mediums in which to improve his sometimes downtrodden disposition.

Crash! Stomp, stomp, stomp—Slam!

Silence, then—

"Damn it, Maxwell!"

Wufei just happened to be his favorite target.

Duo hid his roguish smile behind the lip of his coffee mug, pointedly ignoring the exasperated, albeit resigned look Quatre was giving him.

"Must you antagonize him this early in the morning?" the sandy-haired teen asked. "It's been three months since you last saw each other. I would have thought it might be nice not to have his homicidal impulses directed at you while we're here."

Duo set the cup down and grinned cheekily at him, leaning backwards in the chair far enough to lift the front legs off the ground. "It's _because_ I haven't seen Wuffers in so long that I couldn't resist, Quat. I've got a lot of catching up to do and not a whole lot of time to do it."

Quatre shook his head with a quiet sigh and a smile, sitting down opposite his friend with his own cup instead of continuing to berate him. Trowa chose this moment to enter the small kitchen area of their hotel suite with a small amused smirk on his otherwise calm face.

"Wufei has feathers stuck in his hair," he stated, matter-of-factly.

Duo made a 'snirk' noise and quickly hid his face in his cup again, downing the rest of the beverage in two quick gulps before getting up and walking over to the sink. "Anyone heard anything on Heero yet?"

"Ms. Une called this morning and said she still can't find him," Quatre replied. "There's been no trace of him since he left Relena's guard detail last month."

Duo rolled his eyes. Rinsing out the cup, he grabbed a towel and turned around, leaning against the edge of the counter as he dried his hands. "That figures. That guy won't be found if he doesn't want to be."

"Which is making Une's job next to impossible," Trowa agreed from Duo's recently vacated seat.

"Yes, well, Ms. Une wants us to go ahead and head over today, "Quatre said. "She said she'd rather have our help now than wait until we can track Heero down on our own, so not finding Heero isn't so much a priority than concern for his well being."

Duo snorted, but there was no bite in his response. "That guy can take care of himself."

"She knows that, but it doesn't stop her from worrying."

"Che, women."

Duo grinned. "Mornin', 'Fei!"

Wufei, hair now washed and feather-free, opened his mouth and took a breath, before giving up and sighing instead of yelling at the braided teen. "Good morning, Maxwell." He looked over the table before focusing on Quatre. "She still hasn't found Yuy."

It wasn't a question, but Quatre answered nonetheless. "No."

"Wonder what's so important," Duo said. "Une doesn't seem the type to call all of us in unless she absolutely had to." He looked at Wufei. "You're part of the Preventers. Heard anything about this?"

"Not much," Wufei replied truthfully. "I've been out on assignment, but I've heard there's been a lot more activity lately. Apparently, the Vice President has made two appearances just in the last week."

"Do you think it could be another war?" Trowa asked.

Quatre shook his head. "No, Ms. Une seems worried, but not overly so."

"Besides," Duo agreed with a chuckle, "She wouldn't have lent us this awesome hotel room to sleep in if there'd been threat of another war. She would've demanded our asses in her office the moment we landed planet-side."

"Well, there's only one way to find out."

**XxXxXxX**

When the four arrived at Preventer's Headquarters, none of them were prepared for the flurry of activity nor the heavy tension in the air. Duo looked at Wufei accusingly.

"You—"

"I haven't seen any of this for myself, Maxwell," Wufei interrupted. "My information was secondhand. I never claimed to actually know."

Duo closed his mouth with an audible click of his teeth and looked forward stubbornly.

A man with dark brown hair and a large stack of papers in his arms stopped in front of them and stared at them with a slightly bewildered expression. "You kids the ones the Director is waiting for?"

"Yes, sir," Quatre told him.

The man shifted the stack of papers and nodded before looking over their heads and calling out over the clamor, "Hey, Wilson!"

"Yeah boss?"

"Take these kids to the Director's office. She's expecting them."

"Sure thing, boss!"

As the older man shuffled off, a younger man with dark blonde hair and a popsicle stick in his mouth jogged up to them with a smile on his face. "Well then," he said, "Follow me."

Duo smiled at Wufei as the Chinese teen murmured something that sounded very much like, "Treating us like we're useless children," in an unhappy tone.

"Look at it this way, 'Fei," Duo said cheerfully. "At least they're not treating us like terrorists."

Their guide looked at Duo strangely, but led them out of the busy work area and down a much quieter corridor towards—

"A storage closet?" Trowa inquired.

"Yep!" Wilson replied. "She's in hiding right now." Then, he knocked and opened the door.

As the doors opened and the four pilots filed in, Wilson waved at them and walked away, leaving Wufei to close the door behind them. Une stood up from her desk and held out four folders. They each took a folder. "Good morning," she said, "The President has called me twice just this morning, so I am afraid that I have no time to chat. In those folders you will find four separate missions. I do not care which of you takes which, but I hope that all of you at least choose one. I will understand, however, if you choose not to participate."

Intrigued, Duo opened his folder first.

_Date: March 10, AC 197_

_Reported by: Mitchell Bryant – Level 2_

_Summary: Colony X-1999 has shown suspicious activity in regards to—_

Duo looked up as Trowa said, "These seem like routine missions. Why do you need us?"

"As you may have noticed, we are rather short-handed," Une replied simply. "Many of the missions given to us have been things the regular Police should be handling, but the President has decided that the Preventers Organization need to start pulling more weight. Needless to say, we need all the help we can get. I called you in because I know you can follow through. What do you say?"

Duo looked between his comrades.

Quatre looked a little hesitant before looking down at the open folder in his hands and saying, "Are these going to be individual investigations, or will there be others involved?"

"There will be others," Une replied.

Quatre looked up at the others. "I could probably do this one, but what are those?"

Duo waved his folder. "Mines a colony doing hinky stuff. Probably gonna need undercover work."

"A probe was mysteriously destroyed while investigating a disturbance in the Kuiper Belt two weeks ago. They want someone to investigate it," said Trowa. "I wouldn't mind taking the undercover mission."

"A serial killer called Barry escaped from a transport van yesterday while being transferred between prisons. I think I'll keep this one."

Duo made a face, having been about to call the convict one. He shrugged. "Okay, then I'll do the Kuiper thing."

Une smiled. "Great."

**XxXxXxX**

**2 Weeks Later**

Boing—Thwap.

Boing—Thwap.

"I should've fought Wufei for the convict mission."

Boing—Thwap.

Boing—Thwap.

"Quit that."

Duo ignored him.

Boing—Thwap.

Boing—

"Hey!" Duo exclaimed indignantly, sitting forward in his seat. He glared at the other man, who was now holding the small bouncing ball he'd been rebounding off the ceiling. "Give it back."

The other man didn't blink in the face of Duo's annoyance. "No. You'll just do it again and I told you to stop it."

The two continued to glare at one another for a couple of moments before Duo gave up and sighed, rubbing the back of his head in agitation as he sprung himself from his chair. "Fine. I'll just go find something else to do then."

As he left the room, the other man shouted after him, "And stay away from the furnaces this time!"

"Yeah, yeah," Duo grumbled, trudging down the pathway towards the cargo area. "Not my fault it turned out to be flammable."

One left turn, a right, and a ladder down two floors brought him to his intended location and as he came to a stop, he couldn't bite back the grin spreading across his face at the sight of his buddy. He'd had to cover Deathscythe with a tarp so that it could be transported, but even covered like it was, that fact that it was a suit was easily recognizable.

He'd managed to convince Une—through hard work and a wild imagination—that the disturbance "just might be from invading aliens with technology much more advanced than theirs and that he might need his Gundam in case they were attacked." She'd let him take it, but he had a sneaking suspicion that she'd let him more to shut him up than because she actually believed him.

Truthfully, it just made him feel better to have his buddy with him. He was being cut off from everywhere and everyone he knew. Having his Gundam with him was a small price to pay for comfort.

A voice over the intercom drew him out of his musings.

"_Pluto is now in sight. We'll be arriving at the last known location of the probe in roughly two hours."_

Duo smiled and rapped his knuckles against the side of Deathscythe. "Hear that? We're officially the farthest any human have ever been in the solar system."

"Oi, Maxwell!"

Duo looked up. Mildred, the ship's mechanic, stood leaning against the railing of one of the catwalks with a grin on her face. Her yellow overalls were smeared with oil. She'd probably been working on her pet project again. "Why are you down here? Shouldn't you be up top gawking at Pluto like the rest of those numskulls?"

Duo grinned at her. "Why aren't you?"

Mildred snorted. "I'm much more interested in getting us back home than looking at something I've seen thousands of pictures of already. I know Hako believes that those panels can get us back, but I'm not so sure. It's old technology."

"Careful," Duo teased. "Wouldn't want the passengers to get twitchy."

Mildred eyed the cloaked Gundam as she replied, "I don't think anything I ever said to you would scare you. Not if that's what I've been thinking it is."

Duo shrugged and opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the intercom again.

"_Uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, guys, but I think we have a problem."_

**XxXxXxX**

"Aliens."

"Well, yeah. What else could that be?" The pilot, a man probably in his late twenties, pointed emphatically at the large ship seeming to float towards them.

"He's got a point, Garrett. Nothing should be out here besides us."

"Stranger things have happened."

"What? Like a creepy-ass looking ship floating through an area in space that hasn't ever been explored by actual humans is considered normal? I've ran the classification on that ship through the system three times and nothing's coming up. It's both unregistered and unknown. I'm telling you, it's gotta be aliens."

Duo watched the ship on the screen as he listened to the crew debate what it was behind him. For all intents and purposes, it looked abandoned; dead, even. The pilot—Andrew—was right about one thing at least. He didn't recognize that type of carrier either.

"Have you tried contacting them?"

"Well, no, but if they're aliens, I don't really want to anyway."

"Do it."

Duo heard Andrew sigh resignedly behind him, followed by the sound of buttons being pressed and then, "This is Beehive. Please respond if possible."

They waited in silence for a moment before Garrett spoke up, "Did you not take Communications class in the Pilot's Academy? That was the crappiest message I think I've ever heard."

Andrew grumbled, but didn't try again.

Duo's eyes widened as the ship suddenly came to life and turned its course in a maneuver he would've normally thought impossible for such a large vessel. As it angled itself directly for their ship, an angry looking claw-like thing flickering with electricity, Duo took a step back. "That can't be good."

Garrett moved in front of him as the previously unmoving ship continued towards them and Garrett cursed. "No," he agreed. "It's not. Andrew, we're leaving."

"On it!"

"Everyone else back to their posts. I'm going to need everyone to get us out of here." As the remaining crew members exited the helm in a hurry, Garrett's eyes landed on Duo, who'd remained behind with nothing to really do. "If things turn ugly, I want you and that suit ready to go. Someone's going to have to get out of this, if things go South."

Duo nodded, understanding, and turned to leave.

"And Maxwell?"

Duo looked over his shoulder and caught the small object Garrett threw at him. He looked down. It was the bouncy ball Garrett had confiscated from him not fifteen minutes ago. He looked back at the Captain.

"Good luck."

Duo jogged all the way down to the cargo area, uncovered his buddy, ran the start up sequence, and waited near the passageway.

It wasn't a long wait.

The ship collided heavily with something—_probably the other ship_—and as Duo attempted to regain some semblance of balance, the main lights were suddenly replaced with the dull red glow of the back ups. Things went abruptly downhill from there. Duo retreated and stood at the open hatch of Deathscythe with a gun in hand as thirty seconds later, what looked eerily like frantic, fast-moving zombies poured out of the passageway and into the cargo area.

"What the hell is this?" Duo said to himself, dumbfounded. The whole thing was like something out of a bad horror film.

As the first one came into range, snarling at him in an acutely non-human fashion and holding what looked like a handmade spear, Duo shot him in the chest. It wasn't a wound that would immediately kill him, unfortunately, but he'd done his best with how much the zombie-guy was thrashing around. However, his sympathy was ruthlessly squashed as said zombie-guy merely got back up and re-joined his pals in trying to reach him, albeit more slowly.

With all the growling and frantic climbing the zombie-like creatures were doing, he never noticed the one coming up behind him.

As the sneaky one clamped an unyielding arm around his chest and attempted to take a chunk out of the space between his shoulder and his neck like some kind of zombie-vampire-mutant, Duo's training took over and he elbowed it in the gut hard enough to knock the breath out of it. As it reeled backwards, letting go, Duo whirled around and deposited two quick shots into the thing's head. And then he decided that now was a good time to leave.

He jumped into the cockpit of Deathscythe just as one of the zombie-things took a dive at him and it cleared over the space harmlessly to tumble down the opposite side of the Gundam. He pounded his right fist on the button to close the door as his left one came up to check the nape of his neck. Luckily, the thing hadn't broken skin. He hated to think what kind of diseases the thing had.

The hatch couldn't close quickly enough and he ended up letting off three more shots at the zombie-things before he was safely inside. He took a moment to catch his breath as the screens booted up and showed him his surroundings. He didn't like what he saw. The cargo area had roughly fifty of the weird zombie-things scattered around the room, either looting through things or climbing on his Gundam. He hit the record button to his left with more fervor than was necessary and pushed his suit to sit up and give the room a once-over. He needed something to bring back home, after all.

More zombie-things were coming through the passageway now, and the new ones were covered in what looked like new blood.

Duo didn't think twice as he swung Deathscythe's fist through the metal side of the ship, ripped a hole large enough to fit through, and escaped.

He forced himself to believe that the bright yellow splashed with crimson he'd seen out the corner of his eye had merely been a trick of the light.

**XxXxXxX**

He'd lost sight of the sun.

It was a disturbing thought, if not because he no longer knew where he was, then because he hadn't actually thought it was possible. The sun was roughly eight-hundred and sixty-five thousand miles wide—not exactly an easy subject to lose sight of. And yet that was exactly what Duo had done.

Though, maybe the huge-ass wall of scattered metal, ice, and rocks had something to do with that.

Duo cursed and veered sharply to the left to avoid the small ship diving towards him. The zombie-mutant-things seemed to have little to no regard for their own safety and attacked him with the single-mindedness not unlike that of the Mobile Dolls from the war. The only upside to the situation was that there weren't very many of them.

The small ship—the last of the bunch that had deployed after his escape from the Beehive—sped towards him yet again and he spun as he got out of the way, bringing the scythe around in a clean arch with him, and effectively sliced the pest-like ship straight through the middle.

Frowning sadly, he looked over at the Beehive. The weird zombie-things' ship was still attached to it and now it looked just as dead as the first one. The hole Duo had created to escape had probably dropped the zombie-things' numbers dramatically if the majority of them had been crowded around the room with him, but there was no telling just how many of them there had been to begin with. For all he knew, their ship could've been full. They definitely had room for more than he'd seen.

_Well_, he thought, clenching his fist, _Ti—_ A loud beeping interrupted his thoughts and pulled his attention to his left where a moving dot had shown up on his radar. He turned Deathscythe to see what it was.

"Another one?" Duo exclaimed uneasily as the blip turned out to be another of the creepy red-painted ships. "Man. How many of these things are out here?" Pressing a few keys and pulling on the navigational stick, he started flying backwards and away. He didn't have time to stick around. Something like this needed to be reported, and fast.

Half an hour later, he was zombie-thing free, but no closer to locating the Sun.

_Okay, Duo,_ he thought,_ If you were a gigantic ball of Hydrogen dictating the orbits of planets, where would you hide?_

Looking at his navigation screen told him nothing, as all it showed was a glowing, blinking 'Error' message. Since Deathscythe had been on shutdown and in the cargo area during the trip, it hadn't recorded their progress, but that didn't explain why it couldn't pinpoint his location. He'd had to have gone out of the known solar system for that to happen. And Duo didn't want to think about what that could mean.

He glanced around. He had to say, it was a hell of a view, though. He'd pushed Deathscythe in the opposite direction of the zombie-things, which meant he had moved away from the wall of scattered space debris—and he was beginning to think that it had actually been the Kuiper belt—and was now floating listlessly through space. Space looked the same, generally, no matter where you were in it, but out here…

Duo relaxed into his seat and sighed. Space had a way of making someone feel exponentially small and the feeling was only magnified now that he didn't have the colonies nor the familiar planets surrounding him. He was a fish out of water—or in this case—a human out of his solar system. And he was going to eventually run out of power. Chances were he'd freeze to death before he could ever get back home.

He had no idea how to get back to the belt either, as it was impossible to tell the difference between one belt from next. And there were four, from what he'd been able to gather so far.

Futilely, Duo flipped the switch to attempt contacting someone again. It hadn't worked the last four times he'd tried it and even though he knew why, he still tried. He was just too far away; Deathscythe wasn't outfitted with the same equipment that the Beehive had had. Inputting the S.O.S. signal, he waited, listening to the droning static as he floated through space with nowhere to go.

Ten minutes went by with nothing, and then twenty, and he sighed as he reached forward to turn it off when he heard it. It wasn't much, and it was impossible to make out, but he heard it nonetheless. The sound of the static cut out long enough for maybe three or four choppy syllables to get through. Duo felt a smile spread across his face and he looked to his right at 'belt' he had been hovering next to. He flipped on the 'mic' and hoped for the best.

**XxXxXxX**

_TBC_

_This chapter was only supposed to graze the 3K mark, and what do I do? Went and made it exactly 4400. :sigh: Thanks for reading!_


	2. Kansas

_Disclaimer in Chapter One_

_Author's Note at the end of the chapter._

**Chapter Two**

The hum of Deathscythe running on emergency power was soothing to Duo and he had to fight off yet another wave of exhaustion as he watched the screens intently, looking for any sign of a planet or colony or, well, something other than empty space. So far, he hadn't found anything, and he was starting to worry about his steadily dwindling power supply. Another two hours of this mindless wandering and he wasn't going to do anything but find himself an early grave.

He'd been hopeful when he'd caught those bits of transmission, but now, seeing the nothingness that seemed to be this system, that spark of hope was quickly fading. Though Duo prided himself in being an optimist, life had made him a realist as well. If something didn't show up on his radar in the next thirty minutes, he wasn't going to have enough power to do much besides breathe.

_Good job_, he told himself cynically as he held down a button to change the perspective of his radar. _I survive L2, survive the church, the war, and then I end up dead because I turned right instead of left. Irony: One; Duo: Zero._

He succumbed to the next urge to yawn and he popped his neck before lifting his hand off the button to scratch at the back of his head agitatedly. Leaning back, he tilted his head to look at the ceiling of the cockpit.

Of all the ways could possibly have died, getting lost outside his solar system had never actually crossed his mind. It made him feel kind of like he'd been cheated, though. He'd spent a lot of time, both before and during the war, thinking up creative ways in which he could kick the proverbial bucket. Kicking a bucket had even been a part of one of the scenarios. But this… Duo looked forward again and stared at the radar at what Deathscythe was showing him.

And very promptly gaped, jerking forward in his seat to get a closer look.

"Where the hell did _that_ come from?" Duo reached around and grabbed the controls, returning Deathscythe to full power before twisting the Gundam around to face what he'd originally thought had been 'up'. He couldn't believe it. There in front of him, what he'd been floating under for the last forty-five minutes, was a snowy white planet, orbited by what appeared to be three moons. Behind the planet, he could see other planets of various shapes and sizes.

Duo stared, feeling a slow, wide grin spread across his face. He'd been right under everything the entire time.

_Guess it's true what they say. Humans never really think to look up. Least not until it's too late._

He glanced over at his power supply indicator and his grin lost a little of its enthusiasm. _Right, air first. Think about ancient proverbs later._

He steered Deathscythe towards the planet and, as he came closer to it, a small box popped up in the bottom corner of his screen informing him that the planet had an atmosphere. One almost exactly like Earth, at that. Smiling at his change in luck, he prepped Deathscythe for descent and plunged towards the ground.

As he plummeted, he could see that the planet really was a lot like Earth, or more specifically, like somewhere in the North during wintertime. As Deathscythe landed on the snowy landscape, Duo looked around. It looked very much like the deserted tundra in northern Sanq, only with fewer trees.

As he scanned the area, a flash of movement caught his eye and he turned his head back towards the left to see open field and a small leafless tree in the distance, but nothing that could explain the movement. He watched the tree as it seemed to glide towards him down the hill, almost as if it were skiing. As it came closer, Duo blinked and pressed a button to zoom in.

It wasn't a skiing tree. It was a human, and it was holding something—

Duo blinked again, stunned.

"Is that a _shotgun_?"

**XxXxXxX**

The Director of the Preventers Organization was not having a very pleasant Thursday morning. To kick things off, her morning coffee had had too much sugar--and Lady Ann Une just could not operate under this much stress without caffeine like she used to.

Almost immediately after that, a senator, of whom she still could not remember his name, had demanded an update on the fugitive serial killer Barry Morgan. She might have been able to actually help the old goat if only the report hadn't been buried beneath stacks of other reports of similar importance.

Therefore, when one of her assistants knocked hesitantly on the door and informed her that contact with the spacecraft in charge of investigating a destroyed piece of military equipment had been lost after a disturbing transmission, she was ready to start pulling her hair out. Whether the urge to do so was because of frustration due to stress, or because she could not remember who or what had even been sent on that particular mission, not even she knew.

"Where's the report on that?" she asked the assistant, picking up a couple of the manila folders and looking at the labels. _And I swear to whatever God there might be, if it's somewhere in this mess…_

"Right here, ma'am," the assistant crossed the room in uncertain, but evenly spaced strides and handed the plain folder--exactly identical to every other one already on the Director's desk--to her. Une opened the folder and skimmed its contents.

As she finished reading, her face gradually fell into an expression of seriousness only those who'd known her during the war had seen. She looked up at the assistant, a hard light in her eyes as she asked, "Who all knows about this?"

"Besides us, only the First Responder and his manager, ma'am."

"Good," Une said whilst closing the folder, and turned slightly to the left and slid the entire folder into the shred bin, effectively destroying it. The assistant looked nervous and more than a little uncertain when Une turned her gaze back. "I want all electronic and physical evidence of this incident destroyed. As of this moment, this information is classified as Top Secret and you are not to speak of this to anyone, not even me. Relay those orders to the others, as well. Is that understood?"

The assistant gulped and stood straighter as she stuttered out her reply. "Y-Yes, ma'am."

Une relaxed back into her chair as the assistant exited the storage room in a hurry. She looked down at the report Quatre Winner had provided her the night before with a pensive expression. _It's not going to be enough. They'll find out eventually, but I'll be damned if I let this start another war._

**XxXxXxX**

Five hours, twenty-seven minutes.

Though he'd slept through roughly two of those hours, and it wasn't a record by any means, it was frustrating nonetheless. This backwater town reminded Duo of something out of an old Western movie and it had about the same level of technology, too, not counting that neat little hover-vehicle he'd rode into town on. But despite the lack of OZ-type restraints, the farthest he'd been able to get in escaping thus far was getting his hands in front of him instead of behind. There was some twisted sort of irony about the situation, but he couldn't muster up the will to laugh at himself over it.

Yet.

He sighed and resisted the urge to glance at his watch again.

Duo closed his eyes and pulled his chin up from his chest to knock it against the adobe type wall behind him. _This totally sucks._

He had tried explaining to the man arresting him that there were cannibals in space that had killed the rest of the crew of his ship and that he'd gotten lost as a byproduct, but either the man didn't believe him, or he just didn't care. Neither scenario boded well for Duo, and he knew it. But between the freezing temperatures and unfamiliar territory, he hadn't wanted to take his chances at wandering outside alone and had allowed the man to stuff him in the back of his cool hovering vehicle. Duo had intended to escape once they'd gotten—hopefully—somewhere civilized, but ten minutes into the trip had him almost frozen stiff.

Hence his current location: Jail.

The sound of the outer door opening prompted Duo to open his eyes. Turning his head slightly to look down the hall, he could see a middle aged man being led towards his cell, hands behind his back no doubt bound the same way his own had been. The man's clothes and face were filthy and wet, as if he'd taken a very recent mud bath in the snow. The man's long brown trench coat was completely soaked through—as were his boots, if the 'squelching' sound was any sign—which was probably making the man feel like he weighed a ton.

As the man and his captor—who Duo was affectionately calling Deputy Dick—reached the cell, the man finally seem to notice him sitting against the wall.

"Yo!" Duo greeted with a smile and a casual salute, letting his left hand dangle closely to his right. Not like he really had a choice. "How's the weather out there?"

The man snorted loudly as he was pushed forcefully into the cell. "Cold."

"No talking," Deputy Dick ordered rather belatedly, slamming the cell door behind the man. The lock clicked into place and then Deputy Dick turned around and left without further reprimand.

Duo wasn't sure the officer actually took his job seriously, as he hadn't seemed to notice that Duo's hands were now in front of him. Then again, maybe he had and just didn't care, like before.

A few seconds later found the two alone. The man continued to stand in the middle of the cell, though he had turned around to scowl at the retreating deputy until the door had swung closed, cutting off his view. After a few moments of silence, Duo let out a chuckle before cheerfully asking, "So, what you in for?"

The man turned his scowl away from the empty corridor and quirked an eyebrow at him appraisingly, obviously noting the small patch of white at the collar of Duo's black shirt. "What about you?"

"Hmm," Duo replied noncommittally and looked up at the ceiling. "Apparently, it's bad manners to show up in town without telling these people beforehand." He shrugged and looked back at the man, displaying his tied hands and feet. "They don't seem to like my brand of humor, either. Or me at all, for that matter. But hey, can't win 'em all, right?"

The man huffed in amusement and finally moved, stepping over to the wall opposite Duo and slumping against it to slide to the ground. The cell went silent for a couple of minutes and Duo, now in the presence of another human being, began to grow irritably twitchy at the lack of activity. Ten minutes went by before he couldn't stand it anymore and he scooted himself over to, once again, inspect the bars for weakness and-or decay.

For the most part, Duo's new cellmate remained ignorant of the world around him, choosing to instead stare up at the small barred window near the ceiling. Duo was content to let the man stew in his silence and eventually he gave up looking for a weak spot in the bars. Instead of returning to his previous spot, he sprawled out as best he could in front of them and followed the man's gaze to the darkened window.

"Waiting for a messenger pigeon or something, old man?"

The man didn't answer immediately, but when Duo took a breath to ask again, the other man interrupted him. "Mal."

Duo blinked owlishly and let the breath go. "What?"

The man glanced at him out the corner of his eye. "If you want to call me something, call me Mal."

Duo smiled. "Okay. Mal it is, then. I'm Duo; I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie. Nice to meet 'ya." He looked back at the window, choosing to ignore Mal's grunt. "So, messenger pigeon?"

"Of sorts," Mal admitted, shifting slightly on the floor, obviously uncomfortable. Duo didn't blame him.

The braided teen chuckled. "Oh good, 'cause I was starting to wonder if you were going to jump up there and start clawing at the bars or something." Mal didn't answer and Duo let the cell go silent again for a few minutes before asking, "So what's the deal with this place?"

"What?"

Duo shrugged and, pulling his legs up towards himself to rest elbows on knees, he explained. "It's like I've landed in a old Western movie, only without the damsels in distress or the cool and heroic cowboys." He tilted his head slightly to the right before adding, "You all speak English, too."

"Yeah?" Mal hazarded. "What's so special about that?"

Duo didn't roll his eyes. "Coincidences happen, sure, but something like this?" He trailed off, lifting his hands to encompass both the room and its occupants, "And us able to speak the same language, both calling it English? That can't be one of 'em."

Mal leveled a familiar look at Duo and he bit back a smirk at seeing Wufei's 'You're-not-making-any-sense-again-Maxwell' expression on another person's face.

He sighed and gave up. "Never mind." He slouched down against the bars, resting his head between two of them. "I guess it doesn't really matter."

Mal continued to stare at him curiously for a while longer before his attention drifted away and he went back to staring at the window. Duo watched him using his peripheral vision, studying him. Mal seemed human enough, with short-cropped brown hair and blue eyes. Clean shaven, too, just like Deputy Dick had been. This obviously wasn't some kind of Planet of the Apes parody, but while the people Duo had seen so far all seemed civilized, he hadn't seen any kind of vehicles capable of space travel. Though really, that wasn't saying very much.

Duo opened his mouth to ask Mal if he thought they were going to be fed or not—because he hadn't eaten anything in quite a while—but was interrupted when there was a startled shout from somewhere in the vicinity of the outer room. Duo looked over his shoulder at the door in interest. Another enraged shout was closely followed by a loud crash and a gun shot and Duo found himself on his feet even before his mind had fully registered what the ruckus could mean.

A quick glance at Mal showed the man was also on his feet, but his stance was much more relaxed. Like he knew what was going on, despite being locked away in a cell.

Duo smirked over his shoulder. "The pigeons?"

"Don't let them hear you call them that," Mal replied, mirroring his expression.

Duo grinned outright and rolled his shoulders in anticipation as the noise of someone getting thrown into a wall echoed into the room. _Time to party._

**XxXxXxX**

TBC

**Author's Note**: Aaaaand—There's Chapter Two. Not as long as Chapter One, is it? Sorry about that last one. It kind of ran away with itself; though that was mainly because I wanted to get a lot of the back-story out of the way. Hopefully I did Mal justice in this and if not, well, find some way to correct me and I'll fix it as I go. I've never written for Firefly before, so the characters are a little new to me. I apologize in advance, sort of. What else… Oh, if anyone has any questions, _please_ ask and I'll try and clarify it in the story somehow. I won't know otherwise. This all probably makes a lot more sense in my head than it does on paper—er…Word, but I'm trying to keep things as clear and not-confuzzling as possible. Tell me if it's working?

Updates will, unfortunately, be made randomly. Everything depends on my job, inspiration, and how confident I am that the chapter will actually work for what I need, so bear with me on that.

Again, this is un-beta'd and therefore there may have been typos that I missed. If there are any glaring ones that bug the absolute penguins out of you, drop me a note and I'll fix it as soon as I can. Thanks for reading!

**Next Chapter**: Duo meets the rest of the Serenity crew--sans one. Plot is revealed. Cue insane cackling.


End file.
